


The Bear

by Lochinvar



Series: Talismen [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Big Brother Dean, Brothers, Child Neglect, Comfort Food, Dean Takes Care Of Sam, Dean and Sam as Children, F/M, Family, Family Fluff, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, Hungry Dean, Hungry Sam, Hunter Dean, Hunter John, Hunter Sam, Hurt Sam Winchester, John's A+ Parenting, Mary Winchester mentioned - Freeform, Monsters, No Sex, No Smut, Original Character Death(s), POV First Person, POV Original Character, POV Original Female Character, POV Outsider, Parent John Winchester, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Siblings, Pudding, Sibling Love, Siblings, Slice of Life, Survival, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3977497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lochinvar/pseuds/Lochinvar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All those years on the road, did Dean and Sam really survive on their own when John abandoned them time and again? Generations of children have been left to parent themselves and each other, but in many cases, they were not alone. I like to think that angels did watch over them. </p><p>And even when they were adults, did they rely only on themselves and the hunter community? </p><p>This is a thank-you to those anonymous, compassionate people who helped a hungry little girl long ago.</p><p>I own nothing and am grateful.</p><p>Ode to people taking care of children and stepping up</p><p>[Minor edits - November 18, 2015]</p><p>[Minor edits - August 29, 2016]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Little Angels

_[Skokie, IL – circa 2018]_

So, Francie, we need to talk. First, a story that I never told you. Or anyone else.

_[Wichita, KS – circa 1988]_

It was maybe, what, 30 years ago? Still with my first husband, Sherwin, who had the aneurysm, God rest his soul. Do you remember when we left Chicago, and you and me, we lost track of each other for a few years? Sherwin and I had moved to Kansas, living in Wichita while he worked for a big deal aviation company that was going into the computer business. The twins, Deborah and Karen, were five. I was building my real estate business, one house sale at a time.

We were saving money, and Sherwin worked long hours.

Not much time to spend together.  
  
So, once a month we’d go for Sunday brunch at this downtown hotel that had chandeliers, red carpets, and uniformed doormen. My girls loved it. I would fancy them up in identical outfits but in different colors, like blue and green. Sherwin and I would hold hands. Sweet guy. I still miss him. 

One price got you casseroles, stews, fruit salads, veggies in butter and cheese sauces, prime rib with brown gravy, and three kinds of potatoes. Roast turkey and stuffing. Deli favorites like lox, blintzes, herring, pastrami, and a fresh-baked loaf of rye bread dotted with caraway seeds. A poached salmon covered with transparent cucumber slices and capers, if you showed up early.  
  
The desserts were for kids, little and big: bottomless bowls of pudding and Jello, cakes, cookies, slices of pie, and a soft-serve ice cream set-up. Mimosas and bloody Marys for the grown-ups. The puddings were so stiff with beaten egg yolks and whipped cream that they didn’t need a bowl. Folks in the know would scoop a pile on a plate along with the main courses, knowing that extra dishes made navigation back to their tables that much harder.

The place was packed by 11 am. No reservations. Regulars chatted with each other and said hello by name to the bus boys and servers. Children wiggled out of their seats and scooted across the room for one forbidden round of tag with instant best friends from surrounding tables.

We were waiting to be seated. A long line, but the early birds already were leaving. I felt a tug on my dress and looked down. Two little boys stood next to me, holding hands. They were gorgeous. Dressed up like little men. Their white shirts were too big, buttoned to the top button, tucked into their pants. Whoever ironed them was still learning to press cuffs and collars, but the heavy oxford cloth was clean and smelled faintly of bleach. Their dark pants looked worn and were held up with old belts, and their shoes sported thick coats of cheap polish.

They needed haircuts, but their faces glowed, freshly washed. Both were smiling. The older one turned out to be ten, freckled, with sandy hair and the brightest green eyes I have ever seen. Don’t sound surprised, yes, even greener than mine. He looked tall for his age, but a bit too thin. The little one was six, silky bangs, slanted hazel eyes, deep dimples. He also was too thin and looked a little frail. My twins have big blue eyes, but otherwise, the hair color was the same; could have been their brothers.

The older one spoke.

“Miss, miss, your star is so pretty,” he said. He pointed to the pink starburst rhinestone brooch pinned to the neckline of my dress, a present from my grandmother on my 13th birthday. She bought it out of her first paycheck when she was a teenager, weeks after she had arrived in America. Sherwin said that I wore it on everything but my bathing suit.

“Aren’t you the sweeties,” I said, smoothing a cowlick on the older boy’s head. Sherwin smiled.

“Where are your parents?” he asked. 

The older boy pointed across the room to the far corner. Several tables were pushed together for what looked like a reunion of the cast of Brigadoon. Bottle blondes and carrot tops, a woman with auburn waves like Rita Hayworth, freckles everywhere, all dressed in greens and turquoises, and–I thought, is this a joke?–tartan ties, vests, and skirts. I waved and pointed to the boys. The happy Scotsmen waved back in unison.

Our turn, and a server led us through the crowded dining hall to our table. Sherwin had grabbed two booster seats for the twins. The boys led the way. Our family was seated, with Sherwin and the waiter setting up the booster seats and buckling the girls in. The older boy and the little kiddo, who I guessed was his younger brother, stood by and watched. 

We gave our drink orders and then stood up. Sherwin unbuckled the twins. It was tedious, but Sherwin was a safety freak, and he loved taking care of his little girls. We headed back towards the food tables. The boys again led the way, hand in hand.

Once upon a time in our old Chicago neighborhood, do you recall that big ginger and white tabby named Joe, belonged to the Klinsky family that lived on the corner? He would sit in front of his house and wait for someone to walk by and then lead them to the end of the block, running ahead to show the way. Fearless and affectionate. We all watched after Joe. Reminded me of those kids.

(sigh) 

Where was I? Oh yes…

Deborah and Karen almost were old enough, with Sherwin’s help, to maneuver the maze of food choices themselves; they knew what they wanted and ordered my hubby around like ladies of the manor. He ladled out mac and cheese, potato salad, and scoops of pudding. I watched; they wanted Daddy to serve them–no one else would do. They held their plates tight in their little fists as they slowly walked back to our table. Best kids in the world. Still are.

Sherwin heaped up his plate with his own favorites **:** creamed herring, chopped liver, and rye bread slices, with a thick smear of beet horseradish on the side. He would build sandwiches from his plunder and make gross noises as he stuffed them into his face. I had to pretend to be angry. Kept the twins in stitches.

The little boys–who I had already dubbed _my angels_ –watched expectantly as I studied the neat pile of prime rib slices, looking for pink, medium rare.  
  
At their family’s cluster of tables, the mob of MacThisandThat seemed to be engrossed in food and drink, ignoring their stray little ones. I tried to guess who their parents were. 

“Would you like some help?” I asked. They nodded in unison, wordlessly. I grabbed a plate.

“Do you know what you want?” I asked the little one. He dimpled and shook his head. Adorable.

“He wants the good stuff,” said the older brother, flashing a killer grin. Oh my, I thought, wondering about the effect those eyes and smile would have in a few years.

“The good stuff,” I repeated, nodding solemnly. Scooped up small portions from a half dozen serving platters. No fish, nothing spicy or “weird,” just mashed potatoes, a little beef stew, bread and butter, creamed corn, and butterscotch pudding.

“Hold this for your brother, okay?”

The older boy clutched it.

“How about you?” I asked. 

“The good stuff,” he said. I picked the same items, but made the piles a little bigger. 

I caught Sherwin’s eye and tilted my head at the boys, then nodded at our table. He found a waiter and moved up two more chairs, crowding them in next to our girls. Also picked up a booster seat from the front desk. We took a minute to arrange things, putting down the plates full of food and tweaking the position of the chairs. 

Sherwin lifted the younger boy into the booster seat and buckled on the seatbelt, then gently pushed the chair into the table. The older boy was just big enough to make it into his chair himself.

The older boy stared at Sherwin as if he were memorizing his every move. I went back to fill up my plate. The twins thought the brothers were entertaining, but quickly were distracted by the three flavors of pudding their dad had scooped onto their plates. Sherwin and I announced that pudding was a major food group. The girls nodded, not understanding the words, but enjoying how what must have been a joke made the grown-ups laugh.

I looked over to the boys’ family, but they were ignoring the two kids missing in action. And from the number of empty champagne glasses on the tables, they would not be sending out search parties any time soon.


	2. The Good Stuff

The boys were devoted to each other. The older brother had eyes only for his younger brother, urging him to finish his “real” food before he started on the pudding. Leaning over almost too far to wipe the little one’s drippy chin with a napkin. Self-assuredly asking the waitress for a glass of milk, which he helped his brother sip by slipping out of his own chair, standing next to his sibling, steadying the glass, then climbing back onto his chair. He spent more time making sure his younger brother ate than paying attention to his own food.

The smaller boy ate with the kind of dogged concentration that comes from missing meals. You would have recognized the signs; we grew up in the same struggling immigrant neighborhood. We're both a generation away from adding crackers and water to dog-bone soup and filling up on breakfasts, eaten so slowly, of white bread toast spread thinly with lousy margarine.

I tried to engage them in conversation. The little one looked at me with those slanting amber and moss green eyes, his mouth filled from a second helping of the creamed corn that I had scraped from my plate onto his.

The older boy was very polite, but I sensed something under the veneer of “yes ma’ams”. An old, sad soul watched me from the other side of those emerald eyes. The older boy was Dean, his younger brother was Sammy.

The people at the table were his “cousins and aunts and uncles”. His mommy was upstairs in the hotel taking a nap. Her name was Mary. His father was out running errands; Dean was vague about where and for how long. His father’s name was John. He was a mechanic. They traveled lots, but they lived in Lawrence.

Sammy asked Dean if he could have more pudding. Without hesitation his brother awkwardly tilted his plate and reached over. He slid his butter knife along his portion of pudding onto his brother’s dish, as he had seen me do with the creamed corn.

My mother bear gene kicked me in the stomach. 

I stood up abruptly and strode back to the food tables, shoving a helpful bus boy aside. Grabbed a plate and heaped it high. The really good stuff. Slices of turkey and prime rib and pie. Buttery green peas and cheesy scalloped potatoes. Put the dish aside and filled a second one. Sherwin read me from across the room as I returned balancing a heavy plate in each hand. He leaned over and removed the brothers’ dishes, and I slammed down enough good eats in front of those little boys to feed two Kansas All-State defensive linemen. 

Our girls stared at me, halted identically in mid-chew. The families at the tables nearest to ours also stopped and swiveled in their chairs to see what caused the crash of plates.

“Eat,” I said. “Eat all you want.” I realized I was a little loud, growling out the words.

I paused, inhaled, exhaled, and started again. 

“I will get you more if you want.” I said, softly. I felt like apologizing to the boys, who were staring at me intently. They looked at each other. 

Dean slid out of his chair, walked over, and wrapped his arms around me, as high as he could reach. I held him for a handful of heartbeats, and he pushed away gently. 

“It’s okay, Sammy,” he said to the younger boy, turning back to the table. “No one’s mad.” 

Sammy kept eating, alternating bites of peas and pie. 

Dean finally seemed to believe that Sammy would be fed and fed well, and he turned his full attention to his own meal. He also ate methodically, savoring each bite, as if decent food was a rare occurrence.

Sleepy and stuffed, the twins had long finished their portions and watched the brothers eat. 

Sherwin and I did that mental telepathy trick that couples do. All it took was my raising an eyebrow and his nodding.

“Would you like something nice to bring to your mommy?” I asked. 

Dean nodded. I waved over a waiter. 

“I’d like to pack a meal to go,” I said. “These boys and their parents are staying here at the hotel…but we’ll pay for it. Add it to our bill, please”

The waiter nodded, looking curiously at the boys. He disappeared into the bowels of the kitchen and returned with white restaurant boxes embossed with the hotel’s ornate logo in gold foil. We walked together back to the food tables. The waiter held the boxes open while I create a four-course meal for four hungry people. One box I layered with thick, slices of turkey and prime rib, with a paper coffee cup filled with gravy and topped off with a travel lid, tucked in a corner. Another box I crammed full with the scalloped potatoes and stuffing and topped with those really good peas. In another I arranged dinner rolls and butter pats wrapped in foil. The last one I loaded with an assortment of pie and cake slices, each wrapped in its own paper napkin.

I thought of my father, the same age as Dean, begging on the streets of Chicago so that he could buy milk for his younger sisters. I thought of my mother and grandmother, new to the slums of Philadelphia, choosing between paying for food and paying the rent. I know you could tell stories as well, my friend. 

The waiter tied up the boxes into two bundles with pretty red string, which he looped and knotted on top to create handles. 

The dining room was emptying. Sammy and Dean’s relatives were still eating, still drinking, and still ignoring the boys. 

“So,” I said with a hearty voice that fooled no one, including my little girls, “Wanna take these up to your mommy?”

The last thing I was going to do was to embarrass the family. Pride could be as important as food to folks, as you and I know firsthand.

Dean and Sammy nodded.

“Come on, Sammy, we gotta go.” Dean said. Sherwin unclipped the safety strap and helped Sammy down off the booster seat. Dean took his brother’s hand.

“Thank you,” said Dean, and he nudged his little brother.

"What do you say?" he asked, mimicking a parental admonishment.

Sammy spoke up. “Thank you for the pudding.” Too sweet.

Our waiter returned, smiling at the extra five dollars Sherwin slipped him. He disappeared towards the elevators with the boys, a bundle of boxes hanging from each hand.

Sherwin knew what was coming. I pushed away from the table and began the slow march toward the jammed cluster of tables where Sammy and Dean’s oblivious relatives celebrated. He didn’t try to stop me, just paid our bill and hustled the twins toward the lobby and out the door, so they would not see their Mommy arrested for disorderly conduct. 

I planted myself in front of a group at the biggest table and was met by three generations of smiling faces.

Without preamble, I launched into my mentally rehearsed diatribe.

“Do you even care about your children?” I asked.

The adults looked at me in puzzlement, taking in my words, then looked at the kids at their table, who were smiling with plump cheeks, faces smeared with gravy and pie juice.

Yes,” said one of the women, “We care.”

She put a protective arm around the boy sitting next to her, just about Dean’s age.

Okay, they think I am a crazy lady. Now what?

“I know they technically are not your children, but those precious little boys are your blood. They were so hungry.”

I paused, because the reaction was not what I expected. No shame, no guilt, no defensiveness, just blank confusion. The woman with the red mane of Rita Hayworth waves spoke up.

“What boys?” she asked. 

“The little boys, your nephews, or cousins, the ones in the white shirts and black pants,” I said impatiently. 

“Those boys?” puzzled Rita Hayworth’s lookalike. Comprehension dawned on her face, and she nodded.

“Oh, those boys. Sure, and the older one told us that he and his brother were waiting for you and your husband to come down from your room here at the hotel. When he saw the two of you were standing in line he said  _you_ were their mom and dad. Then they both took off."

She looked around the table, and heads nodded in affirmation.

My face must have beet red; I suddenly felt feverish and out-of-breath. I apologized over and over for about five minutes and then slunk out of the dining room, heading towards the lobby and the front door. The waiter who had carried away the boxes of food, with the boys in tow, intercepted me.

“Miss,” he said. “You need to know. Went up to the room with those little fellows. Knocked, called out, put down the boxes, used my master key, and opened the door.  Didn’t hear or see anyone, so I went in. It was vacant. No one was there. When I turned around, the boxes of food and the boys were gone. What’s going on?” 

I ran out the front door of the hotel. Across the street sat an old motor inn, probably surviving off the overflow of the bigger, nicer property. It had seen better times and looked deserted on a Sunday afternoon. On the wall overlooking the parking lot was one of those big, zigzagging exterior staircases. I saw a glimpse of black-and-white as the two boys, carrying the white boxes, entered a room on the third floor of the building from an exterior door

The parking lot was empty except for a shiny, black muscle car with a loud engine, which was just pulling in. A man stumbled out of the driver’s seat, swaying slightly, and looked up at the same motel room door in which the boys had disappeared. He was wearing old clothes, the kind of thick flannel shirts and jeans that men who live in small towns wear when they go hunting. Worn dark plaid stained with blood and smoke. No one in our Chicago families hunted, as you well know, but I saw plenty of men dressed in identical clothing in rural Kansas and Illinois gas stations, armed for deer and geese.

Sherwin had pulled our modest Ford Fiesta in front of the hotel. He waited for me while he listened to a Cubs game on the radio. The girls were conked out in the back seat.

I watched the man hobble up the rusting staircase, balancing a big Army duffel bag over his shoulder, the kind long enough to hide a rifle. He went to the door where the children entered, knocked twice, then twice again. The door opened, and he went in. It closed behind him.

I got in the car, and we drove away.

Went to the same hotel for brunch on and off for one more year, until Sherwin’s company went bankrupt, and we moved back to Chicagoland. Never saw the boys there again.


	3. Some Things Never Change

_[Manhattan, KS – 2008]_

Twenty years later the twins were finishing their graduate studies at Kansas State University in Manhattan. Karen was planning for her residency in veterinary medicine. It’s been nice having a vet in the family, don’t you think? Deborah, having flipped majors at least three times, was on a fast track in the behavioral sciences, which would lead her into a management career in corporate America. Yes, I know, I brag about my girls. Whose gonna stop me? 

I had buried Sherwin and left Michael, number two, long ago. You never met him. Yeah, the putz who married me for my insurance policy and spent my savings at high-end tribal casinos across the Upper Midwest. He was good to the girls, when he was around. Will give him that.

Preston came later. A great guy, a widower with nice kids. We worked together well as a couple. But not much of a sense of humor, not like my Sherwin. I miss Preston, too, but we were more like roommates. Glad I could be there for him at the end. 

Three husbands in one lifetime. I agree. Enough already.

So I am sitting in the campus cafeteria, reading a book on real estate law–me and my girls are going out to dinner in the evening–and I hear a familiar deep voice. Looked around, and I recognized Dr. Leibovitz, Deborah’s linguistics professor from her previous major in anthropology. (How many times did she switch? But look at her now, Miss Corner Office with the Company Car.) 

Deborah talked about Dr. L. in such awestruck tones I thought she had a crush on him. One year, when I was visiting the girls just before the holidays, I joined them for a campus-wide interdepartmental party. I met the professor and realized that he was 80 if he was a day. Spent the evening at his side. A true scholar with wide-ranging interests. He entertained us with stories about men and women who thought they had contact with the supernatural and who came to him looking for information about ancient prayers, protection spells, and such. 

Dr. L. was huddled at a corner table with two young men in dark suits and ties and snowy white shirts. Several books were open, and while the two men ate pie and drank coffee, their eyes were on the good professor as he talked.

I walked over to say hello, and all three rose to their feet. Such manners. I expected this from Dr. Leibovitz, with his white hair and stooped shoulders. But the two young men were from a different generation, and still, they had a formal air about them.

The taller one was a giant with long hair, which despite his formal suit and tie, made him look like an artist. The shorter one, who was still taller than me, had broad shoulders. I looked up into his eyes, the greenest eyes I had ever seen. Except one time, long ago. 

He was starring at my pin, the same pink brooch I had worn every day since my Bat Mitzvah, 37 years before. 

Later, I remembered it as one of my movie moments, those times where you think that a director with a megaphone has yelled “Action!”, and you find yourself on the set of some 1940s sob sister B-movie, surrounded by cameras and lights.

 “Dean?” I said. My vision blurred with tears. I thought I was just a foolish, middle-aged woman, until I felt his strong arms around me. 

We stood there hugging. He stepped back, his cheeks wet.

“The good stuff?” he asked.

 “Yes, the good stuff,” I replied, laughing a little.

Sammy, that skinny boy in the booster chair, towered over us silently.

“Remember, Sammy, I told you about the time when we were broke in Wichita, and Dad dumped us at that ratty motel and disappeared, and we ran out of food, and we dressed up and went across the street to the hotel, and I came up with a scheme to get something to eat, and the angel with the star pin fed us and gave us enough to eat for a week, and Dad came back and was happy for a change? 

Suddenly the giant’s long arms and gentle, broad hands engulfed me.

“Butterscotch pudding! You’re the Pudding Lady!” he said, in the same way kids talk about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

He shook his head.

“I thought I made you up.”

We sat in the cafeteria for an hour, old friends catching up. Dr. Leibovitz flagged down one of his students passing by and got us more coffee and pie. The boys’ faces fell when they realized that the kind, funny man who helped Sammy (pardon me, Sam) in and out of his booster chair was gone. I wept a little over their mother and father, more tears when I realized Mary had died years before I met the boys. 

We laughed over my encounter with the freckled-faced fake family, and they were pleased to hear how well the pretty little girls with the blue eyes were doing. Dean described how he scouted the cars pulling up from the window of their motel room, hunting for adults who looked as if he and Sam belonged to them. Sam said, just a bit wistfully, that for years he imagined that Heaven looked like that dining room, with all the food he could eat and everyone nice.

Dr. Leibovitz interrupted us.

“Friends, I hate to break up this touching reunion,” he said, without a trace of sarcasm, “We need to get you boys on the road by 5 pm if you are going to make it to South Dakota before midnight.”

We all stood up, and once again I was passed between the two brothers and hugged. Left me with a couple of bruises that I cherished for days.

“You saved us,” said Dean, whispering in my ear.

I slipped my real estate business card into his pocket. I had no idea what they did for a living, but I remembered their father’s hunting jacket, stained in blood.

“You need pudding, you call,” I said.

_[Skokie, IL - 2018]_

I walked away, and that was it. Until today. Ten years later. My mother bear gene kicked me again, this time smack in the heart, when I saw them at the front door, with Sammy leaning against Dean, his face white, and fresh blood on his flannel shirt.

Don’t know how they tracked me to this condo, here in suburban Chicago. That big black car is hidden in the garage. Someone, _some_ _thing,_ hurt Sam, and Dean is patching him up. I am making dinner and packing up a basket for the morning, filled with the good stuff. (Making butterscotch pudding from scratch for Sam. And apple pie for Dean.) They’re heading to Kansas, where they told me they have a home. I talked them into staying the night and pulled out the sofa couch, which makes a pretty good king-sized bed. 

Francie, you are my neighbor and best friend, and our grandmothers came from the same village in Russia, where they also were best friends and helped each travel across two continents and an ocean as teenagers.

So, Francie, I will tell you, with all seriousness, if someone, _or some thing,_ comes knocking at your door, ever, about the two men and the black car you saw and heard tonight, you saw and heard nothing.

The boys told me stories. Not so different, really, from the stories we heard growing up about Cossacks and the Czar’s draft, the pogroms, and the Red Army, and Stalin, and the Nazis. 

Monsters take many shapes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for the kudos and comments.


End file.
